As part of its ongoing digital playbook, Freedom Pizza has partnered with Visa to introduce ‘Freeda’, making it even easier to order pizzas. Customers have to go to Freedom Pizza’s Facebook page to place an order. And they will receive exclusive deals when using the Freedom Pizza ‘Freeda’ bot.

Freedom Pizza was the first restaurant merchant in the Middle East to offer Visa Checkout, and now is the first company in the Middle East to offer Facebook Messenger ordering, alongside Visa Checkout. The bot was developed by regional tech start-up Eila – a finalist of Visa’s 2017 MENA Everywhere Initiative. It is seamlessly integrated with Freedom Pizza’s online ordering platform and powered by Visa Checkout.

“The Facebook Messenger Deal Bot is part of our ongoing efforts to make ordering on our award winning digital platform even easier and more accessible for our customers,” says Freedom Pizza founder and CEO, Ian Ohan. “We are proud to work with Visa and Eila to continue to push the boundaries within the e-commerce space. Since launching, we have already had over 1,000 deals purchased by using this platform in the first week alone. Over 70% of our orders originate online and the percentage is continuously growing. We have many more cool features and enhancements in development; we are always looking to improve the service that Freedom Pizza offers.”

“We are thrilled to help bring the first merchant chatbot solution that leverages Visa Checkout to the region. Chatbots offer an easy and intuitive way for consumers to interact with retailers, making it a great fit with Visa’s technology to create a seamless and secure online shopping and payment experience. This is an exciting development in payments innovation in the region, and we are delighted to partner with Freedom Pizza and Eila to make this happen,” adds Nathan Cushnie, Visa’s head of digital solutions for MENA.